1. Field
The present invention relates to computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation in multi-component systems. These types of simulations are a subset of Computed Aided Engineering (CAE), which is the use of computer software for the purpose of modeling and simulating the behaviour of products in order to improve their quality.
2. Description of the Related Art
CFD is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses iterative numerical methods and algorithms to solve and analyse problems that involve fluid flows. A solution may be a steady state or a transient state of fluid flow. CFD can also take heat flow into account, and thus act additionally as a heat analysis.
The invention particularly relates to the field of CFD simulations which involve a large number of models composed of a finite number of components. A typical application is CFD simulation of heat transfer inside servers, in which the model usually consists of one large component (Motherboard) and many smaller components (expansion cards, memory modules, CPUs, etc) and several configurations need to be simulated and analyzed.
CFD simulation has become a crucial step in the design of many industrial products. One typical case is the IT industry, where hardware manufacturers and system integrators use CFD to simulate the air flow and heat transfer inside notebooks, desktops, computers, servers and other devices. The results obtained from the CFD simulations are used to increase the quality and reliability of the products by optimizing the way the components are placed inside the case and making sure they are running at optimal temperature. On a larger scale, the same kind of simulation can be used for the many parts in an automobile or aircraft. CFD can also be used for simulation of data centres and rooms within data centres.
The flow of a traditional CFD simulation process is shown in FIG. 1. First, a CAD model of the system to be simulated is created or obtained in step S1. Before the simulation can be performed, the model has to undergo pre-processing, in which a mesh of the model is created in step S2 and then boundary conditions and material properties are set in step S3. In meshing, the geometry is partitioned (meshed) by a mesher into a very large number of elements, to form a mesh. The mesh, accompanied by the boundary conditions, is subsequently sent to a solver which uses standard numerical techniques, like the Finite Element Method, or, more usually, the Finite Volume Method to compute the effect (e.g. fluid behaviour and properties) of the boundary conditions on the system, using individual calculations for each element. For complex geometries with many components, the meshing stage is particularly difficult both from a computational point of view and because in many instances it involves manual work.
After the pre-processing stage has been completed, the CFD solver mentioned above is run in step S4 in a simulation/modelling stage which solves the numerical equations, generally using an iterative technique to obtain the results of the simulation. The process ends with a post-processing stage S5, in which the results are visualized and analyzed.
Embodiments of the invention aim to address the computing and/or user input time required to simulate complex CFD models, in particular for models that are a combination of a number of components.